Coachella Uses Google DeepMind AI to Test the Future of Live Entertainment

Coachella is popping one of many world’s greatest music festivals into an AI testing floor.

The competition collaborated with Google DeepMind throughout this 12 months’s occasion to construct and check experimental instruments designed to vary how artists create performances and the way followers expertise them.

The brand new experiments deal with “world fashions”—AI methods that generate interactive digital environments. Coachella’s innovation staff spent the 2026 competition constructing three prototypes with Google DeepMind’s Mission Genie, the corporate’s world-model platform.

“We engaged on this venture the place we’re working with their instruments to discover what are the ways in which these instruments can prolong and develop an artist’s canvas, give them extra instruments for inventive expression, develop artist world constructing on website and at house, after which make the expertise extra easy and extra enjoyable for followers,” Ryan Cenicola, Coachella’s innovation manufacturing lead, instructed Decrypt.

One prototype, referred to as “Turning Performances Into Interactive Experiences,” captures reside reveals and rebuilds them as 3D environments that followers can discover. Through the first weekend of the competition, groups recorded lighting, audio, visuals, and the motion of each the gang and artists throughout a Quasar stage set, then recreated the efficiency in Unreal Engine.

Coachella mentioned the expertise may finally create “residing archives” of performances that followers can stroll by means of, replay from totally different views, or view with alternate visuals generated in actual time.

“There are positively methods we’re how followers on-site can interact with that content material sooner or later,” Cenicola mentioned. “Wanting additional forward, with glasses and the emergence of that type issue, that’s actually a spot we’re serious about this content material residing and making it an much more immersive expertise for followers on-site.”

A second prototype is a stage-design software for artists. The software program lets performers add visuals or enter prompts to see how a present would look on a 3D mannequin of Coachella levels at totally different instances of day and with totally different crowd situations.  The objective is to provide smaller acts entry to manufacturing instruments sometimes reserved for artists with bigger budgets and groups.



The third venture is a cellular sport referred to as Coachella vs. The Sport, the place gamers management an astronaut and discover digital worlds based mostly on competition artists. The staff in contrast the thought to the video games folks may play earlier than visiting a theme park, giving followers a option to discover the lineup earlier than arriving on the competition.

“Usually, you are six to 12 month growth timelines to actually push a high-quality expertise. And that point has been shrunk considerably, even simply because the starting of this 12 months,” Kevin McMahon, Coachella’s innovation partnerships lead, instructed Decrypt.

Requested why Coachella selected Google DeepMind over rivals like OpenAI or Anthropic, McMahon pointed to the corporate’s visible AI instruments and current relationship with the competition.

“For us, we reside in a extremely visible world, they usually have one of the best visible fashions,” he mentioned. “We work with them throughout the competition, from our YouTube livestream, which is a part of a Google relationship. We’ve discovered them to have actually nice fashions which might be straightforward to make use of, they usually’ve been delivery at a extremely quick price. We’re excited to maintain exploring with them.”

The AI tasks construct on years of Coachella testing new expertise to develop the competition past the occasion itself. In 2024, the competition launched Coachella Quests, a sport on the Avalanche blockchain that allow attendees full challenges and earn perks by means of NFT stamps. That very same 12 months, Coachella launched Avalanche-based NFT passes and collectibles after its earlier Solana NFT partnership with FTX fell aside when the crypto change collapsed.

“An expertise like Coachella Quest was a method for us to shine a lightweight on issues and say, ‘Hey, have you considered this?’—with out doing it in a boring menu sort of method,” McMahon mentioned. “How can we make it interactive—a option to discover and uncover on the competition—and provides followers an opportunity to stumble upon one another and say, ‘Oh, you had been going to see that factor or accumulate that factor too.’ These glad accidents are one thing we proceed to get actually optimistic suggestions on.”

Coachella has additionally invested in augmented actuality experiences for livestream viewers. This 12 months’s AR broadcasts included digital results layered onto performances that had been seen solely to on-line audiences.

The present AI tasks haven’t been launched publicly, and stay inner proofs of idea. Cenicola mentioned Coachella is reviewing classes from this 12 months’s competition earlier than deciding what may roll out in future years.

“It is tough proper now to place a agency timeline on it,” he mentioned. “We’re within the section the place we’re taking all of the learnings from these three proofs-of-concept that we wrapped up final weekend and dealing with our staff and with DeepMind to know what the subsequent steps are.”